Creatine and Hair Loss

Welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast with Jerred Moon!
In today’s episode, Jerred covers a hot topic for many lifters: Does taking creatine cause hair loss? A brand new 2025 randomized controlled trial finally takes a deep look at this question—and the results should put your mind at ease.

🧪 The Study: Creatine and Hair Loss

Study Title:
Does Creatine Cause Hair Loss? A 12-Week Randomized Controlled Trial
Published: 2025
Participants: 38 resistance-trained men (ages 18–40) with at least one year of lifting experience

Protocol:

• Double-blind design

• Creatine group: 5 grams of creatine monohydrate daily

• Placebo group: 5 grams of maltodextrin

• Study length: 12 weeks

• Measurements: Total and free testosterone, DHT (dihydrotestosterone), scalp and hair health (hair count, hair density, thickness, and more)

📊 Key Findings

• No significant increase in DHT levels

• No significant changes in hair count, density, thickness, or scalp health

• Total testosterone slightly increased (which is normal)

• No impact on hair loss detected at all

“This was one of the most controlled studies I’ve seen on creatine and hair loss—and the results are clear: creatine does not seem to cause hair loss.”

⚠️ Where Did the Hair Loss Rumor Start?

It all traces back to a small, older study where participants were taking 15–20 grams of creatine in a loading phase. That study showed increased DHT—but:

• It wasn’t a large study

• The results have never been strongly replicated

• The doses were way higher than the typical 5 grams/day most athletes take

Since then, the “creatine causes hair loss” rumor has taken on a life of its own—but this new study helps put that to rest.

💪 Why Creatine Is Still One of the Best Supplements

Creatine remains:
✅ One of the most researched supplements in sports nutrition
✅ Proven to support strength and power gains
✅ Shown to have cognitive and neurological benefits
✅ Safe for long-term use in healthy adults

Jerred’s personal experience:

“I feel stronger, faster, and perform better when I’m on creatine. My muscles feel fuller, and there are definite mental benefits too.”

💊 Pro Tips for Taking Creatine

1. Choose Creapure® — the purest, most reputable form (produced in Germany). Look for the Creapure® logo on the label.

2. Stick to 5 grams per day.

3. No need for a loading phase—that’s just marketing hype to get you to burn through more product.

4. Be consistent—it can take 3–4 weeks to feel the full effects as your muscles saturate with creatine.

5. Cycle on and off if you want—Jerred does, though there’s no strong need if you stick to 5 grams/day.

🚫 Final Verdict: Creatine Does NOT Cause Hair Loss

This 2025 study offers strong reassurance: creatine supplementation does not cause hair loss in healthy men taking 5 grams per day. And with so many proven performance and cognitive benefits, it’s still one of the smartest supplements any athlete can take.

👊 Ready to Train Smarter?

Want a complete training system that combines smart programming with the right science-backed recovery and nutrition tips?

👉 Start your free trial today at GarageGymAthlete.com

And remember: If you don’t kill comfort, comfort will kill you.

Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week

Podcast Transcript

 Jerred: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast, Jerred Moon here. And I have a very interesting study to go over today. This one was done in 2025, and the name of the study is, does Creatine cause hair loss? A 12 week randomized controlled trial? So if you are unfamiliar with creatine, you must have been living under a rock.

So what's very interesting is, uh, you know, creatine back in the day. People were a little bit scared of it. Uh, you know, some people thought it was like a, you know, this massive performance enhancer, all these kind of things. And then it has become one of the most well researched and safest, uh, supplements out there.

And. I cycle on and off of creatine. I see a lot of great results when I'm taking creatine, but now there are so many other things coming online from a research persec perspective of the benefits of creatine. Um, this not only coming with increased muscle per or increased performance, muscle gain, all these kind of things.

Um, there are a lot of cognitive benefits, um, especially when you are under stress or really just on a daily, like mental cognition, mental performance, mental ram type thing, like creatine is just proving to be incredibly beneficial for everybody. For all humans. Um, and the research just keeps coming and coming and coming.

So, I mean, from my pers perspective, from my chair, creatine seems like a, an awesome supplement that most people should be taking. And I know when I'm taking it, I do perform better. I feel faster, I feel stronger. Uh, my muscles feel fuller. Like everything just feels a little bit better when I'm on creatine.

And it's a relatively mild supplement, right? I do cycle off of it. Just as I do with most supplements, just because, uh, that's what I wanna do. But I honestly don't even know if you need to, if you're only taking like, you know, roughly five grams per day. And, but, but here's the deal. Here's been kind of like the, why A lot of dudes have been scared of creatine over the years, and there's this like, hey.

You can take it, but it might cause you to lose your hair or it might increase the speed in which you lose your hair. And a lot of people are scared of that, obviously, right? Like, who cares about the benefits if you're gonna be bald from taking this one supplement? I think most, uh, dudes can agree with that.

So what's, what's really interesting is we covered the study years ago, like where that kind of came from. There was this study done where guys were taking, they were doing extreme loading phase. They were taking, I think it was 15 to 20 grams of creatine per day. Uh, and then they, they measured one of the, the prime, you know, um, hormones that is associated with hair loss, which is DHT.

And they found these like really increased levels of DHT. And so, and, and it's only just this one study. And the study wasn't very big. It was like a, a handful of people, maybe a dozen or something like that. And so the big key takeaway there was like, whoa, massive increase, uh, increase in DHT. And so yeah, you creatine probably causes hair loss.

And that's really where most of the, most of this has been founded, right? Like, that's where a lot of the scare has come, come from. But now we have this very specific. Study and it's a 12 week randomized controlled trial. And they're wondering, they're answering the question, does creatine cause hair loss?

You know, and ultimately I think you need multiple studies to kind of like put something to bed or have a full takeaway. But the primary pur purpose of this study was to determine whether 12 weeks of creatine supplementation effects testosterone and DHT concentration and hair loss in resistance trained men.

The, the study include 38 men between 18 and 40 years old who lifted weights for at least, if not more than one year before the study. And subjects were excluded if they had previously had a hair transplant, had taken medication, aim aimed at hair growth, or had a disorder affecting hair loss, or if they had taken anabolic steroids within six months of the study or taking creatine or hair growth supplements within three months of the study.

And. The o the study overview, this is, so it's a double-blind parallel group study with pre and post testing lasted 12 weeks. The subjects were randomized into creatine and placebo. So the placebo is basically like a, a white powder that looked like creatine, but it wasn't creatine and all subjects.

Provided their respective powders, uh, creatine or like the taste matched placebo, they take home ingest on their own. The subjects consumed five grams of creatine monohydrate daily, or five grams of maltodextrin daily. And subjects were asked to maintain their normal diet and study and lift weights at least three times per week.

So here's the really interesting thing, um, they measured everything. I mean, they. Total testosterone free testosterone, DHT, like a lot of different blood biomarkers. But then they also looked at hair and scalp outcome measures, which I think is crazy. They looked at hair count, hair density antigen, intelligent hair rate, percentage of hair rate, terminal percentage hair rate, vellus like.

Cumulative thickness. So they were really like looking at the hair and scalp, which I thought was really interesting. And ultimately the findings said that total testosterone significantly increased and free testosterone decreased from pre and post study in the entire co cohort. These uh, changes led to significant main time effect in the ratio of DHT to total and free testosterone.

Concentrations of DHT and cre cre, creatine did not significantly change pre to post study. Most importantly, there was no significant changes from P pre to post study for any measure of hair or scalp health. So that is the main takeaway I think, that most people should be looking at here. So they, this is one of the most controlled studies I've seen specifically looking at hair loss for creatine, and they're saying.

Hey, creatine. It's one of the most effective and well-researched supplements for strength and power, and it does not seem to cause hair loss from everything that they looked at, from every measure they looked at, not just like, Hey, what were the DHT concentrations? What were the testosterone concentrations?

They looked at all of the different. Hormone profiles. And then they were actually looking at people's head and scalp and this is over a 12 week time period. And they're saying, Hey, we didn't see anything that was significant that would say you are gonna be losing your hair if you're on creatine. Which I think is awesome.

This is an awesome study for people. Uh, 'cause this is really the only concern I've ever seen with creatine there. Uh, for some dudes it's like, oh yeah, well it's gonna, it's gonna cause hair loss. When I originally saw that one study with the significant increase in DHTI was like, ah, well maybe, maybe it is.

And maybe that's why I should cycle on and cycle off. 'cause I don't wanna accelerate hair loss, right? As a, as a dude in my late thirties, like, I don't want to speed anything up, right? And so if you're feeling the same way, you can now take creatine and know that it's not going to affect your work. Your hair loss most likely, right?

Like I don't ever fully believe just one study I like for multiple things to come out, but this one is pretty well done. And I think that that's something that you should take into account now. Just so a quick note on creatine. Um, a few recommendations I always get into recommendations with, with creatine, there are a lot of, uh, different companies, um, putting out creatine these days.

The one that I always recommend is not, it's not specifically a company like Gold, this brand or that brand, but Creapure is the, the main creatine source I recommend. And, um. To my knowledge at the last research of a CRE Pure comes from a company in Germany. Um, and a lot of companies are using this creatine specifically.

So, and they all get to the same place. So you choose your favorite brand, whatever influencer is pushing creatine and saying that you should take their creatine or whatever, just look at the source because they have to put the CRE pure, uh, logo on there, on the bottle somewhere on the canister. And so if it says CREA Pure, they're getting it from that same location, which I think is funny.

That they're, it's just all the companies are getting it from the same place, but then they have a different logo or different label on it that makes people feel more comfortable. So anyway, make sure it's crea Pure is the first checkbox that you want to have. Um, as opposed to some super cheap creatine from China or whatever is not what I'd want to be consuming personally.

But hey, you do, you so crea pure. It might be a little bit more expensive, but definitely worth it from a health perspective. And then taking it, uh, we've gone over this quite a bit, but you don't really need to load creatine, which is what some brands will suggest. They'll be like, Hey, take 20 grams the first five days and then back down.

All that's really doing is forcing you to buy more creatine because you're in ingesting so much more. Um, and then, so if you're like, well, how much I need you to take five grams a day? Really? And it's gonna take several weeks for you to truly notice the difference. But you'll notice, you'll notice I notice when I'm off and I notice when I, my cells and my muscles are like fully saturated with creatine.

I honestly think it takes about three to four weeks of taking five grams. Each and every single day to truly notice the difference. And so that's just something to keep in mind if you're going to be taking creatine. Alright, that's it for this one. Creatine. Incredibly beneficial. Do your research and you will see everywhere plastered on the internet right now, especially more recently, there seemed to be a ton of benefits recruiting, not just in the sports performance world, uh, but in cognitive mental health benefits and everything in between.

Phenomenal supplement. So definitely something that you wanna look into. And if you want to take it, make sure you're taking the right brand and the right amounts. And that is it. If you want to become a part of our training, go to garage gym athlete.com, sign up for a free trial. We would love to have you, and for all of our athletes out there putting in the work, really appreciate each and every single one of you.

That's it for this one. Remember, if you don't kill comfort, comfort will kill you.